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New Theme: Evolution

Evolution is a simple, classic design, but with a twist; it is our first fully responsive design. What makes the theme so special is its ability to adapt to various screen sizes on the fly without using any special browser detection and without having to re-load the page. The theme has four distinct layouts, each of which are triggered at specific window sizes. When viewed on a mobile phone or tablet, the design will degrade elegantly, and will even change when the device is flipped between portrait and landscape orientation. To view the changes in action, just try reducing the width of your browsers window when previewing the theme.

Evolution Features

1. Four Unique Colorschemes – Evolution comes with four different colors to choose from, including White, Blue, Green and Red. You can switch between these different colors at any time from within the ePanel theme options page.

2. Four Distinct Design Variations – Evolution come with four different layouts, each of which are served to your users based on their screen size. Each layout has been tailored to improve the usability of your website when viewed on smaller screens.

3. Improved Experience For Mobile Visitors – When using Evolution, there is no need to use third party mobile plugins or alternate mobile themes. Evolution will display beautifully on smaller screens due to its responsive nature. It will even change when the phone or tablet is flipped between portrait and landscape mode through the use of CSS3 media queries.

I hope that everyone enjoys the new theme! Be sure to leave a comment and let us know what you think

By Nick Roach

I am the founder and lead designer at Elegant Themes. When I'm not hard at work on new themes, I enjoy writing an article or two on our blog!

Really nice addition in your gallery Nick but i was wondering too why the CSS control panel with the unlimited themes and colors wasn’t included.

“The theme has four distinct layouts, each of which are triggered at specific window sizes” also i would like to suggest the inclusion of a 5th layout for widescreen LCDs with resolutions like 1920×1200 or more. This will be amazing for the portfolio, image gallery template or for any other section so you can display more content and use all your screen estate.

Nick, this is one of the best ideas I have seen a developer come up with! I love the simplicity of it, no longer do I need to load plugins in to make my site compatible for mobile browsing! This makes things a whole lot easier!

No Nick needs to run out of “customers” like you Mohammad… make some use of your own talent to create something unique for your clients instead of posting dumb reactions like yours and those other mostly anonymous heros here demanding more variation… buy your stuff in another store and let us enjoy Nicks work.

Great work, Nick – just what I suggested when you came up with ‘Handheld’! I hope you’d continue the responsive bit on all future themes. Here’s some bugs I found…
a. On smaller browser window size, the Image Gallery page animates only the photos on second column- the First column phots remain static.

b. The Tabbed Content shortcode is screwed on mobile screen size

c. The Navigation button is useless after the first click(where it works!)
The next clicks don’t show any menu links.

What I look for in the themes is structure, functionality and ease of use, all which ET themes capture beautifully. Combine these with the right plugins, and add some Photoshop and CSS skills and you’ve got yourself another quasi-unique theme.

Nick, building on what Valentin said above, it would be nice to see how others have customized your themes, and it may be an idea to feature select customers’ customized ET themes, if anything to stimulate more creativity within the ET community.

Love this. Still a bit buggy for me to use right now but I love where this is going. Awesome themes as always, which is why I paid

Could I make a suggestion, perhaps a “modular theme” would be nice. Don’t know if I used the correct term but couldn’t you offer a theme that allowed us to use pieces of each. Such as where I want the recent works or blog section or what type of slider to employ…

Just a suggestion. I’d be quick on each release then and these themes would def blow other themes out of the water even more!!!

Keith, I’m new to ET,but finally decided on ET over the Genesis Framework because of the beauty of Nick’s designs.
That being said, I’m still too new to this to know if I made the right decision in choosing ET over Genesis.
Can you enlighten me as to your comment “Genesis, Headway… forget it, this is the theme for me.”
What are the reasons that have made you come to that conclusion?

I am wondering this because I get the impression that Genesis is probably better in terms foundational design since it is a child framework (you can change themes without losing your content or dropping in your SEO rankings) and it sounds like it is also a more secure system…. but of course I don’t know this through first hand experience, but only through what I have read.
The downside of Genesis in my humble opinion is that the look and feel of their themes is rather pathetic. My sense is that if ET was based on a Child framework like Genesis, then it would be the perfect solution and everyone would flock to it.

The comment regarding Headway and Genesis is completely out of context. Elegant Themes is created for both the non-designer and designer.

They are made to be used “out of the box” with little or no customization, however, if you are familiar with the “back end” functionality, you can create amazing deviations.

Regarding Headway, which I use, and Genesis, both are completely different animals. These are not themes but rather frameworks which allow you to build your site from the ground up. They have pre-made themes for a price, but I think that defeats the purpose.

Most likely your host has a limit on the file size of your uploads. You can try asking them to up the limit, or your can try reducing the file size of theme. To do this you can unzip the theme on your computer and delete the /psd and /samepledata folders before uploading.

A third option would be to use FTP to transfer the theme files, which will bypass this file size limit.

I like the style, especially when it comes to the sharp corners of the slider, embedded in the soft design this really looks good.
Although it is only a step away of Modest theme, this is really, really nice with the rough edges.

I am definitely new at the whole WordPress world. I did some research and figured Elegant Themes was the way to go. I love all the Theme options, but would love to change the colors to themes like Evolution. I recently purchased the Adobe CS5 designer master suite (even though I am clueless what to do with it all), so I am wondering if I upgrade to the “Designer” status if I can change colors on any theme?